Tartine
Some of my friends were lucky enough to eat at Tartine Bakery and Cafe in San Francisco last week on my recommendation. I am quite envious of their adventures in gluttony.
A few weeks ago I read Shelley's blog post on Tartine and knew mine was long overdue--6 months overdue. I think I should be fined.
Last winter, I was lucky to taste what turned out to be my favorite restaurant (bakery) in San Francisco. I wanted to try ALL of their pastries everything in the case looked so incredibly delicious: golden browns, yellows, rich chocolates, fluffy white meringue, slivered almonds, and dustings of powdered sugars. Yum.
It was brunchtime on a cold and drizzly day. I knew I needed something warm in my stomach before moving on to pastries. I got the fromage croque monsieur--an open faced sandwich on Tartine's bread with a melty mixture of lots of different cheeses. The menu tells me it's béchamel, gruyere, and fromage blanc seasoned with thyme and pepper and with some tomatoes in the mix. Served HOT.
Look at the steam.
The sandwiches came with these cute pickled carrots on the side. I only like pickled carrots with Vietnamese food, so I thought they were better for picture taking.
Lil Phan skipped the "meal" and went straight for the pastries. She had an incredible coconut cream tart. BEST COCONUT CREAM PIE (tart) EVER. I've been dreaming about this coconut cream yum off and on for months.
Coconut cream was so good she went back and bought the banana cream version for the plane ride back to Texas.
There's even a Tartine cookbook Shelley says it's one of her favorites. I'll have to trust her on this, after all, she's the one who went to pastry school. I just make cake pops.
